SORDID DOINGS AT ANNAPOLIS: HOW THE NAVY REACTED

David EvansCHICAGO TRIBUNE

The resignation earlier this month of second-year midshipman Gwen Dreyer suggests that the Naval Academy may be suffering from an acute hardening of its ethical arteries.

Last Dec. 8, on the weekend of the annual Army-Navy football game, a number of midshipmen, Gwen included, engaged in a spirited snowball fight on the yard outside Bancroft Hall, the academy`s massive dormitory.

Gwen returned to her room to continue her evening studies. About 15 minutes later, three male midshipmen, including senior Matt Stromberg, burst into her room, grabbed her and bodily carried Gwen into the hallway.

''Gwen thought they were going to throw her out into the snow,'' said her stepmother, Carolyn, in a recent interview.

Instead, Gwen has hauled struggling down the corridor to the men`s latrine, where she was handcuffed to a urinal.

Other midshipmen gathered, taunting and photographing her. One midshipman stepped up to the urinal and acted as if he was going to relieve himself.

Gwen`s two roommates eventually freed her by shoving their way through the crowd of laughing, joking midshipmen and pleading for the keys.

The first her parents knew of this incident was not by a telephone call from academy officials, but from Gwen herself, who waited two days before calling in the middle of the night to relate the details of this degrading experience between hysterical sobs.

''If Gwen hadn`t called us, I don`t know how long it would have taken for us to find out,'' said Carolyn Dreyer.

Gwen`s father, a distinguished 1967 graduate of the academy, wrote the superintendent, Rear Adm. Virgil Hill, asking for a full inquiry.

Academy officials dithered until mid-February, a full two months, before the deputy commandant of midshipmen, Capt. Tony Watson, conducted a hearing.

In the weeks before the hearing, Gwen was approached by some of the midshipmen involved in the incident, who warned her not to testify against them.

Gwen also was interviewed by top academy officials. These officials, Carolyn Dreyer said, ''never mentioned to Gwen our letter to the

superintendent; they tried to undermine our support for her.''

Indeed, according to Gwen`s stepmother, one academy official not-so-subtly threatened to release photographs confiscated after the incident, which supposedly showed Gwen smiling while manacled to the urinal.

Carolyn Dreyer is still outraged at this crude ploy to keep the family silent.

There is a fine line between a smile and a grimace, and Carolyn Dreyer said, ''Gwen was terrified; she had no idea what was going to happen next''

once she was handcuffed to the urinal.

After the February hearing, academy officials ruled that the incident was not premeditated, and under this interpretation of the midshipmen regulations, it was not technically hazing, which can be cause for immediate expulsion.

As a result of the hearing, some of the midshipmen involved were restricted to the academy grounds for a month and given demerits. The punishment, according to various sources, was equivalent to being found drunk in uniform.

A half-dozen others were issued letters of reprimand by Adm. Hill.

Gwen`s stepmother is far from satisfied. ''If it wasn`t premediated, why were the handcuffs waiting on the urinal? These guys assaulted somebody and they did virtually nothing,'' she declared.

The entire incident simmered out of public view until Gwen completed her final exams for the semester and then promptly resigned from the academy.

Responding to a spate of news reports about the incident, Adm. Hill said the midshipmen involved ''were punished at the level just below that which would have resulted in their dismissal.''

However, some academy alumni have misgivings about the Navy`s handling of the case.

''Putting your hands on a classmate is a big no-no'' and can be grounds for dismissal, said a retired admiral and Annapolis graduate. He added that the letters of reprimand indicate ''that Hill clearly wasn`t satisfied with the workings of the honor system.''

Instead of dismissal, Matt Stromberg is scheduled to graduate and to be commissioned in the Navy next Wednesday, according to an academy spokesman.

In the meantime, Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett has dispatched the inspector general, Rear Adm. Ming Chang, to conduct an immediate inquiry into the sordid doings at Annapolis.

Adm. Chang might start by asking Stromberg and the others involved the one question uppermost in the minds of many Annapolis alumni.